BM ART is pleased to announce JIANG Peiyuan’s second solo exhibition, FORMULA, is going to open on July 5th, 2015 at JING WANG space. The exhibition lasts until Aug. 5th.

In recent art practices, JIANG Peiyuan is more focused on the materials’ own language such as their structure and properties. By masking their identity and functional attributes, he has been re-examining, digging and expand the vocabulary of these materials. Peiyuan has been fascinated the “superficial things” for a long time, he thinks on the one hand, ‘surface’ refers to objects in contact with the outside world (Surface), on the other hand, it also refers to the external phenomenon (Appearance), and the surface itself is the assistance or interference to the contents.

In his new work “A roll of paper”, JIANG continues the simulation of visual after-image (a roll of corrugated paper stained by white paint) as he did in the previous work “2016”. He uses watercolor and printing ink to simulate a used corrugated paper on a roll of drawing paper. Straightforward title pointed out that the material nature of the drawing paper and corrugated paper, namely no matter how different of their surface texture and internal structure, they are merely “a roll of paper” in nature of the material.

Similarly, inquiring into the “representation” and “essence” is also appearing in the series of “BW” (bubble wrap). In the shipping experience of art exhibition, JIANG Peiyuan noticed that all works were packed with bubble wrap, which dispelled the differences in the content and form of all the works when they are unopened. Inspired by this, he used acrylic paint to moulding the surface of a bubble wrap then stretched it onto a canvas, in this case the bubble wrap turns from a packaging material into the art work itself. JIANG talks about the series of works, “my works represent complement of binary relations such as the existence and non-existence, inside and outside, obscuration and display. Besides the contrast view experience caused by context switched and sense of cold humor has also been one of my creative motifs.”

This exploration is particularly prominent in the work “red orange, blue cobalt”: This piece is also starting from the superficial difference of plastic products by the means of using acrylic paints to simulate a flattened plastic ball. It displays that from acrylic paints to plastic balls, though the volume of each object has changed, but their essence as “plastic products” still stay.

If the above three pieces/ groups of works seems from the same creative clue, then the lastest series works “CB” which mainly showed in this exhibition can be seemed as a further and deeper experimental practice of JIANG Peiyuan. In this series works, as a kind of industrial material, the structure and daily function of corrugated board itself attracted him: Visually, it contains the characteristics of Minimalism Art and Optical Art, which he thinks precisely make this daily object has the potential to become an art work.

Then Peiyuan directly processed some art experiments onto the corrugated boards: he used plane and hammer which his father often uses in building decoration (his father is running building construction business) to formed some indentations in different directions of points and lines on the surface. These indentations subtly manipulate the light to form rich changes of shadows, just like wonderful traces of light itself on the corrugated board. Here, the light is not only the media for views, but also becomes an essential factor to complete the work. The artist used the combined action of the color, the texture and the light to create images that have a sense of space and time, also the motion. Moreover, these works make the viewer convert their viewing perspective, as well as deepen and expand these materials’ visual vocabulary.

JIANG Peiyuan was born in 1983 in Jiangsu province, he graduated from Birmingham institute of art and design (UCE) in U.K. in 2006(B.A.), and graduated from the University of the Arts London Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL) in 2008(M.A.). He won the Chris Wainwright Award and John Moores painting Prize (china) in 2012; shortlisted in Bloomberg New Contemporaries and Jerwood Drawing Prize in 2009; and won the BP Young Artist Award in 2008. He recently lives and works in Beijing.

NEWNEWSPEAK is the ultimate form of language reduction. A constriction of the worldview, NEWNEWSPEAK delimits the capacity of generating concepts to the repertoire of thought-figures inscribed in its lexicon. Reflecting Ludwig Wittgenstein’s aphorism ‘the limits of my language mean the limits of my world’, ruthless aesthetico-political regimes have recurred to diverse forms of Newspeak to create, consolidate and defend absolutist values. Art, architecture, design, music, performance, literature, fashion are just some of the means used to infiltrate Newspeak in every sphere of life.

Eponymous to the language spoken and written in George Orwell’s novel 1984, Newspeak remains as relevant today as it was when the novel was first published in 1949 (the year of the foundation of the PRC). NEWNEWSPEAK is the way in which materialist, spiritual, phenomenological, empirical and hermeneutical approaches disguise social, economic and political interests behind aesthetic screens.

Through painting, installation, video, photography, and mixed media, NEWNEWSPEAK explores language reduction and its role in defining and cementing codes for aesthetic values and socio-political signification. Reflecting both its capacity as vehicle for the consolidation of collective aesthetic values and as a radical tool of resistance and subversion, the exhibition deals with language reduction in paradoxical states as abstraction and censorship, material fetish and technological nostalgia attempt to erase, reveal and exacerbate dreams, fears, the unconscious and the sublime within and against NEWNEWSPEAK.

Borrowing its title from an eponymous piece by Elsie Yi Shen, ‘The Yellow Ones are Mine’ explores aesthetic strategies and conceptual bridges employed to transform and reclaim bodies, objects, mediums, thought-figures and processes. Through grasping gaze and alchemistic power, each of the works in the exhibition executes a conceptual transformation, from the extraction of commonplace objects and phrases, to the manipulation of images of the corporeal, from time-based painting of geometric colour fields, to performative selection of all the yellow balloons and painting the remaining ones as an act of conceptual appropriation.

Curated by Garcia Frankowski, the forty seventh international exhibition presents photography, artifacts, and painting to dissect the processes of accumulation, repetition, transformation and documentation inherent to the production and realization of everyday (or non-everyday) projects, as everything is transformed, reticulated and painted in order to declare ‘The Yellow Ones are Mine’.

On 8th June 2015, Magician Space will open ‘AB Blood Type’ a solo exhibition by Ai Weiwei.
The entire wall surfaces of the exhibition halls have been painted yellow, a certain hue in the public sphere used as a forewarning or alert. A new sculptural installation will be making its first appearance in China - a major site-specific installation. Within this environment, the installation appears as a field of iron cast pieces of grass, spanning across, and unifying the gallery’s two exhibition rooms. Forming one variable unit of a vast intersecting installation, three singular blades of grass protrude from a hexagonal base – this unit is replicated exponentially in a tessellated formation to fill a given space. Although simple in form and individually miniscule, the durability of grass lays in a persistent ability to accrue en-masse even in barren swathes of land. With this iteration, iron supersedes its organic form, thereby augmenting the sculpture whilst also subjecting it to rust through the course of time.
Hanging from the ceiling above, a grouping of interlinked stainless steel coat hangers have been reproduced hand-made and suspended together – both works have been placed together to allude to the humble non-descript features of quotidian everyday life. From facsimiles of the humble coat hanger to the small blades of an innocuous plant form, these fragile objects are galvanised by virtuoso displays of technical craftsmanship. It is an approach undertaken with an irreverent, often inordinate attitude, and underscored by a profound joy in puns and double-entendres.

As artist, writer, publisher, and architect, the profligacy of Ai Weiwei’s multifarious practice stretches far and beyond the confines of his studio based in Caochangdi (‘grassy field’ in Chinese). From San Francisco’s famed Alcatraz Island to his participation at the 2013 Venice Biennale, as a leading chronicler of our times, he has also participated in major solo exhibitions including: Martin Gropius Bau (2014), Indianapolis Museum of Art (2013), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2012), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (2011), Tate Modern, London (2010) and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2009). Architectural collaborations include the 2012 Serpentine Pavilion and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Stadium, with Herzog and de Meuron.

“Tennis Court” is artist Xu Qu’s first large scale outdoor installation, and the second installment of the terrace project since our initial collaboration in the project “Control” with architect Wang Zhenfei. “Tennis Court”continues Xu Qu’s interest in studying movement of his previous line of thoughts, in focusing the momentary state observed in the movement of the object. The artist presents a 1/6 of a regular size tennis court for the viewers, and with the help of mechanical power, we can see the unique moments of a tennis ball in this court. This installation prompts us to inquire into the new ways of observation and the right of imagination.

Xu Qu, born in Jiansu Province in 1978, received a master degree in painting and film studies from the Braunschweig University of Art, Germany in 2008, who currently lives and works in Beijing.

The Terrace Project is an outdoor project established in 2013 at Taikang Space, a platform for cross-disciplinary artistic experiment. In collaboration with young artists, architects and designers on the third floor terrace of Taikang Space, it allows them to create works in an outdoor space of approximately 90 square meters, that aims to effectively explore on subjects such as public space in the contemporary artistic discourse, public art practice, concepts of the spectacle, and the multiple possibilities of the artist’s identity and etc.

Ai Weiwei’s solo exhibition of the same name – “AI WEIWEI” – will be on display at Tang Contemporary Art and Galleria Continua from June 6 –September 6, 2015. With over 400 years of history, the Wang Family Ancestral Hall will pass through two gallery spaces, old home’s structure and that of the galleries’ will become one. Ai Weiwei is one of the world's most important artist. This is his first solo exhibition in China including all new artwork, with Cui Cancan assuming the role of curator.

Built in the Ming Dynasty, the Wang Family Ancestral Hall is originally from Xiaoqi Village of Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. Intended for worship, the hall was built to worship the Wang family ancestor, Wang Hua. In addition to worship, Wang family descendants used this space to hold ceremonies, discuss public affairs, and discipline those who violated family rules. The hall was like a network node for the Wang family, knitting the family’s organizational structure, and maintaining the lineage’s stability and order.

This traditional Chinese architectural structure was built primarily of wood –its columns and beams are connected by tendons. Five kaijian(standard width of a room in an old-style house, about 3.3 meters) by four jinshen (word used to describe depth or length of a house) in size, its tall, central hall is built with the finest of materials. For several hundred years after the hall was built, clan members continuously repaired and altered it as a way of showing off the family’s wealth and identity. Behind the hall’s architectural form and scale, exists the traditional ethics and order as instilled by respect for elders before youth, and men before women.

However, following the revolution, imperialism came to an end and the social ethical system collapsed – the Wang Family’s Ancestral Hall ceased to have any prosperity. After going through Land Reforms and the Campaign Against Old Fours, three of the hall’s four courtyards were fully demolished, leaving only the central hall. Simultaneously, the house where generations of Wang family members once lived became available for public use. Though it belonged to the village, no one took responsibility for its repair, leading to its ultimate decline.

It was in 2000 that a new market system was developed, and the already collapsed Wang Ancestral Hall was turned into a product to be sold on the ancient antiquities market. In 2013, the Xiaoqi Village Committee auctioned off the hall, and Zhu Caichang, a businessman from Dongyang, Zhejiang Provence, purchased it. The hall left Xiaoqi and was moved to Dongyang, where it was repaired and rebuilt. Two years later, Ai Weiwei purchased the hall, becoming its new owner.

Ai Weiwei has created a huge body of artwork that is inseparable from his will or vision. For this exhibition, he has split the hall into 1500 components to be moved to Beijing, where it will be installed – standing between the walls of two gallery spaces, it will create a new space. The changing owners, locations and events that this Wang Family Ancestral Hall has passed through, have continuously added experience and a multitude of features to its identity, creating a dramatic scene.

The original spaces in which Tang Contemporary Art and Galleria Continua are housed – the old 798 government electronics factory built with Soviet aid and East German design – are constructed of another consciousness. As the Wang Family Ancestral Hall stands silently in this space, a magical combination takes form – one space responding to another space, one point in history responding to another point in history. As the office area of Tang Contemporary Art and the architecture of the old house overlap, the audience is able to approach the hall’s columns, beams and other components, capturing a glimpse of this ancient building’s residual memory.

As the Wang Family Ancestral Home stands as an individual architecture, it escapes its fate as being forgotten. It is different from many “ruins” and artifacts in that it doesn't emit a stale smell like the others. In response to the space that spans 400 years, Ai Weiwei reinterprets antiquities that have already changed, creating an entirely new context at the intersection of architecture and art.

The Wang Family Ancestral Hall has changed once again – becoming a space that people can enjoy, moreover breathe together – one that is both old and new.

Expanding on UCCA’s longstanding interest in emerging practices, “New Directions: He Xiangyu” begins a new series of exhibitions focused on young Chinese artists.

From June 11 to August 9, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) begins the “New Directions” initiative with the solo exhibition of He Xiangyu, a presentation of 365 paintings from the artist’s ongoing Palate Project. Part of UCCA’s mission to present the diverse practices of emerging artistic talents from Greater China to wider audiences, “New Directions: He Xiangyu” is staged in the Long Gallery and will be followed by two subsequent shows featuring young Chinese artists later in the year, with further editions throughout 2016 and beyond.

Best known for sculptural works combining comedy and high concept, He Xiangyu here takes a solipsistic turn, revealing an inner topography depicted in a highly sensitive painterly language. During a brief stint in the U.S. where language barriers proved difficult to navigate, He Xiangyu began translating into images the ridges, bumps, and grooves of his palate through perceptions felt with his tongue. The act of translation, always aimed at demystifying the subject, here only seems to further complicate it. The phenomenological processes responsible for constructing a sense of interior space intrinsic to vocalization, the curl of the tongue that produces “rat” as opposed to “that”, become a function of He Xiangyu’s body mapping, supplanting the oral, and aural, by reaffirming the centrality of visual representation.

Executed over the course of four years, Palate Project is composed of six groups of drawings and moves in a perennial display of watercolor, ink, and mixed media on paper. Identifiable anatomical structures dissolve and re-emerge, eventually evolving into color fields of yellow with only the slightest hints of form. Based on a seemingly obvious premise, Palate Project revels in a Cartesian split of mind and body, illustrating that, in spite of proximity to subject, art remains the annotation to a lost referent.

He Xiangyu (b. 1986) first garnered attention for Coca Cola Project, completed merely a year after his graduation from Shenyang Normal University. The piece, which has since been widely exhibited, required a long preparation period of hired workers boiling down 127 tons of Coca Cola. The application of intense heat resulted in two byproducts: an inky liquid and an earthy, dark precipitant. Fertile in its associative capacity, the virtual merde has been used for installations of varying of scale, at times filling entire rooms.
A tangential outgrowth, Tank Project was first featured in UCCA’s exhibition “ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice” (2013). Painstakingly sewn by an army of hands trained by the artist, the flaccid military machine is a life-size replica of a Soviet-style tank stitched from over 400 pieces of fine Italian leather. The material and temporal demands placed on the production of both Tank Project and Coca Cola Project, as well as the East-West dialectic conjured by He Xiangyu’s premeditated choice of cultural symbols, are indicative of a larger trend among artists of his generation to interrogate, at times to comedic effect, the contradictory trends of institutionalization and commercialization of contemporary art.

He Xiangyu’s solo exhibition, the first installment of the “New Directions” series, is accompanied by a monograph supported by Post Wave Publishing Consulting. “New Directions” is initiated by UCCA Director Philip Tinari. “New Directions: He Xiangyu” is curated by Guo Xi.

About “New Directions”
“New Directions” is an ongoing series of project-based exhibitions by young artists from Greater China. Planned for an initial run of ten periodic installments, the series offers a platform for artists to realize a first institutional solo exhibition and bilingual monograph. Building on UCCA’s longstanding commitment to emerging practices, pioneered by shows including “ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice” (2013), “Breaking Forecast” (2009), and the “Curated By…” series (2010-2012), “New Directions” aims both to broaden the institutional exhibition system for new art in China today, and to highlight its richness and complexity for audiences in Beijing and beyond.

About the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) is an independent, not-for-profit art center serving a global Beijing public. Located at the heart of Beijing's 798 Art District, it was founded by the Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens and opened in November 2007. Through a diverse array of exhibitions with artists Chinese and international, established and emerging, as well as a wide range of public programs, UCCA aims to promote the continued development of the Chinese art scene, foster international exchange, and showcase the latest in art and culture to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.